The Department of Energy (DOE) is seriously weighing policy on the retirement of ageing power plants, primarily the coal-fired electric generating facilities, to ensure their capacity could be replaced with nuclear technology in the country’s future generation mix.

According to Michael O. Sinocruz, director of the DOE Energy Policy and Planning Bureau (DOE-EPPB), “that’s what we’re discussing, if we will need a policy on power plant retirements” to be anchored on the plan of the department to stretch the coverage of the Philippine Energy Plan (PEP) through year 2050.

He noted that what is definite at this point is the targeted increased share of renewables in the power mix, but since there is prevailing coal moratorium, part of the policies being sorted is “whether or not the capacities of the plants aged 30 to 40 years could eventually be filled by nuclear.”

Sinocruz emphasized “we’re still running the numbers and what we’re looking at now is: if there’s still room to increase the share of RE.”

In the country’s propounded foray into nuclear power development, he indicated that the department will factor in both conventional builds, including the proposed repowering of the Bataan Nuclear Power Project; as well as prospective rollout of small modular reactors (SMRs) once these technologies will already be licensed for commercial scale deployment – and that timeline is seen between 2028 to 2030.

He conveyed that under the Marcos administration, the initial meeting done by relevant agencies relating to nuclear power developments in the country was last year, but as the DOE crafts updating on the PEP, it is expected that consultations with various stakeholders will be carried out more frequently.

“We’re going to have a planning workshop wherein we’re going to update the roadmap,” the energy official stressed.

Sinocruz stated that apart from the typically-grueling public acceptance on nuclear technology, the other perplexing issues to be sorted in the energy planning will be project siting, financing and market incentives for the planned facilities, as well as demarcating the technology’s capacity share in the power mix.

And while the energy department will be firming up revisions in energy planning, it is also expected that Congress will be advancing the approval of required legislations that will underpin the targeted investment landscape of nuclear in the Philippines.

Nuclear is a technology that could meet any economy’s need for reliable baseload capacity. It will also be a good coupling to renewables on the country’s "decarbonization journey" plus, it could be a cheaper source of electricity for Filipino consumers over the long term.

Nevertheless, players in the power industry have been batting for the institutionalization of efficient policies, regulation and safety measures before any company would be allowed to inject capital into the sector.